Tag: Waterford Ireland

Charles Francis Smithers

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On May 21, 1887, the day after the president of the Bank of Montreal died following a short illness, the New York Times reported on his death, noting that “the effect on the stock market was naturally to depress Montreal stock, though to a smaller extent than might be expected.”  Charles Francis Smithers, my great-great-grandfather, had been president of the Bank of Montreal for six difficult years and, according to a published history of the bank, was “noted for his devotion to business, his high principles and his brilliant direction of the Bank’s affairs during the trying period that had encompassed the building of the C.P.R.”

C.F. Smithers, 1881

Charles was born in 1822 in Surrey, just across the Thames River from the City of London. He was the youngest son of merchant Henry Keene Smithers (1785-1859) and Charlotte Letitia Pittman (c. 1785-1861). As a young man, Charles moved to Waterford, Ireland, where he met Martha Bagnall Shearman. They were married in 1844. 

He came to Canada in 1847 as the accountant of the Bank of British North America. He served in the Bank of Montreal’s Montreal office for seven years as accountant and sub-manager, he was sent to  be manager of the branch at Brantford, Ont. for two and a half years and was then promoted to the management of the bank in St. John, New Brunswick. But there may be errors in this timeline. His eldest son was born in England in the autumn of 1847, so perhaps Charles preceded his wife to Canada, or perhaps the family crossed the Atlantic in late autumn. The couple’s next child was born in New Brunswick in 1849. 

In 1858, Charles became an inspector and, in 1862, he was appointed joint agent of the bank’s New York Branch. At that time, the bank’s official history says, his “quiet and disarming manner concealed a knowledge of banking equaled perhaps by only one or two other officers of the Bank.”

He left New York abruptly in 1863 to become branch manager of the London and Colonial Bank in Montreal. Three years later, he returned to New York City as a private banker and he rejoined the Bank of Montreal as its New York agent in 1869.  Charles, Martha and their growing family (they eventually had 11 children) lived in Brooklyn, where two of Martha’s brothers and their families lived. 

By the time Charles returned to Montreal as the bank’s general manager in 1879, he had been its senior agent in New York City for 10 years. Some people had criticized the bank for indulging in what they saw as risky speculation in a corrupt market. At the annual general meeting of the Bank of Montreal in 1880, Charles explained the importance of its New York business, noting that all loans had been based on good collateral with ample margins; meanwhile, there was a chronic lack of capital in Canada, and many loans were made simply on the basis of the borrower’s good reputation.

In 1881, Charles was elected president of what was then Canada’s most important bank. Over the next few years he faced two big challenges. The first was to steer the bank’s involvement in the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway (C.P.R.) from Ontario in the east to the shore of the Pacific Ocean. The Bank of Montreal acted as fiscal agent for the railway, and it gave it loans for work in progress.

The C.P.R. project faced some political opposition and hostility from competing railway companies, and Canada’s overall economic situation was not strong at the time. But construction progressed rapidly and the railway needed a lot of cash. In 1882 — before the workers had even reached the mountains or tackled the rock and muskeg of northern Ontario — it cost $5000 a mile for delivered steel rails to Winnipeg. The railway spent some $99 million on construction and equipment, raising funds through a variety of sources, including the sale of stocks, mortgage bonds and land grants, and a $25-million government subsidy. The Bank of Montreal loaned the C.P.R. more than $11 million. 

Charles’ second big challenge was to direct the reorganization of the bank’s pension fund. Prior to 1884, there had been a fund to support widows and orphans of bank employees, but there were no guaranteed pensions for retirees or payments to those who became unable to work through illness. That year, the board of directors and shareholders approved a full pension plan for employees.

In a eulogy for his long-time friend, Rev. Dr. Cornish called Charles “a man of integrity and honour.” Following the funeral at Emmanuel Congregational Church in Montreal, Charles’ body was transported to the train station by horse-drawn carriage, then placed aboard a special train to New York City. He was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn.

Charles’ Siblings:

Charles was one of nine children, three of whom died young: Rosa Anne (1811), Henry Keene (1812-1874), Alfred (1814-1874), Francis Pittman (1815), Sophia Anne (1817-1883), George Clayton (1817-1821), John (1821-1893), Charles Francis (1822-1887) and Mary Keene (1827-1859).

Charles’ and Martha’s 11 children:

Charlotte:  b. 1845, Waterford, Ireland; m. Joseph B. Learmont, no children; d.1934, Montreal, QC. 
Charles Henry:  b. 1846, London, England; m. 1. Amaryllis Boerum, three children; 2. Emily Brett, two children; d. 1912, New Hampshire, buried Brooklyn.
Francis Sydney:  b. 1849, New Brunswick or Montreal (probably born in N.B., baptized in Montreal), m. 1. Louisa Bancroft, four children; 2. Mabel Stevens Bouse, two children; d. 1919, New York City.
Martha Dunkin:  b, 1851, Montreal; m. Henry Dawson, no children; d. 1928, Brooklyn N.Y.
Emily:  b. 1854, Brantford, Canada West; m. 1873, George W. Carr, one child; d. 1930, St. Petersburg, Fl. 
John: b. 1856, Brantford, Canada West; m. Kate Brett, no children; d. 1912.
Elizabeth:  b. 1858, Montreal; m. Walter Hemming, two children; d. 1931?, Montreal.
Clara: b. 1860, Montreal; m. Robert Stanley Bagg, three children; d. 1946, Montreal.
George Hampden: b. 1863, New York; m. Frances Cook, two children; d. 1933, Montreal.
Christopher Dunkin: b. 1865, Montreal; m. Mabel Brinkley, three children; d. 1952, Long Island N.Y.
Alfred:  b. 1868 New York City; d. 1890.

These dates have been difficult to find. I started with the incomplete dates given in the privately published Smithers Family Book. In cases where I could not find actual birth and death records, the 1870 U.S. census and the 1861 Canadian census helped. Findagrave.com and headstones and records from Green- Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn and Mount Royal Cemetery, Montreal helped, and I have my own photos of the Smithers family plot at Green-Wood.

Photo Credit:

C. F. Smithers, Montreal, QC, 1881 Notman & Sandham II-62438.1 © McCord Museum

Sources:

Merrill Denison, Canada’s First Bank. A History of the Bank of Montreal, volume II. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1967.

Elizabeth Marston Smithers. Smithers Family Book, Institute for Publishing Arts, 1985.

“A Montreal Banker Dead” The New York Times, May 21, 1887.

See also:

Janice Hamilton, “Henry Keene Smithers, Non-Conformist,” Writing Up The Ancestors, Dec. 1, 2014. https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2014/12/henry-keene-smithers-non-conformist.html

Clara’s Wedding Veil

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Robert Stanley Bagg and Clara Smithers

A few weeks ago, when I was writing an article about the 1882 wedding of Clara Smithers and Robert Stanley Bagg in Montreal, I remembered that I had something that might have belonged to Clara. In the cedar chest there was a dilapidated cardboard box that my mother had told me contained her wedding veil. Hand-written labels identified the contents as the wedding veil that had belonged to my grandmother, and that my mother also wore. 

According to newspaper accounts of their respective weddings, my great aunt also wore it, as did her daughter. These sources mentioned that the veil had been Clara’s, and that it had originally been her mother’s. Clara’s mother, Martha B. Shearman, was married in Waterford, Ireland in 1844, so not only had this veil been used by many members of the family, it was very old.

I contacted Cynthia Cooper, who is in charge of the costume and textile collections at the McCord Museum, to see whether the museum would be interested in acquiring it. The McCord already has a collection of documents primarily relating to early 19th century merchants Stanley and Abner Bagg. Cynthia told me that the museum also has Clara’s wedding dress. She was excited that the veil and the dress would be reunited at least 60 years after my cousins donated the dress.

The veil was completely wrapped in dark blue tissue paper, folded and tied up with string in three places. The little bit of lace peeking out at the top appeared to be in good condition. I decided not to unwrap it until I got to the museum. When we arrived, Cynthia noted down some background information on her computer, then she carefully untied the string and opened the tissue paper to reveal the object inside.  

We were amazed to see a large, triangular-shaped piece of flower-patterned lace. Then Cynthia searched for images of the veil among the museum’s vast photo collection, and in the photos I had sent her. We compared the wedding photos of Clara, my grandmother, my grandmother’s niece and my mother on their wedding days. There was no doubt about it: they were all wearing the same veil — and they were not wearing the lace shawl on the desk. 

Cynthia Cooper, of the McCord Museum, and I examine this lovely piece of lace.

As often happens in family research, you make a discovery only to find it opens up more questions than you had before. I can imagine how the mistake happened: if my mother was the last person to use the veil, my grandmother must have mislabelled it when she put it away. But where is the veil now? Does it still exist? 

And what is the shawl’s story? It is clearly old, but who owned it? Did it once belong to Clara Bagg, or could it, perhaps, have belonged to one of my grandmother’s aunts? Aunt Amelia Bagg is a possible candidate, since she was married twice but had no children. Maybe it belonged to a member of my grandfather’s family, or perhaps my grandmother purchased it herself.

Beautiful as the shawl is, I was disappointed to discover this was not Clara’s wedding veil, and so was Cynthia. She had clearly hoped to reunite it with the dress. She did take us to the costume vaults to show us Clara’s wedding dress, which, to my surprise, was not white, but ivory and yellow. That must have been a common fashion of the times, but it was not something I had been aware of.

As we left, Cynthia promised to research the shawl to find out what kind of lace it is made of, and to date it. She will let me know in a few months whether the museum will keep it.

Photo Credits:

1. Mr and Mrs. Robert Stanley Clark Bagg, Montreal, 1882, copyright McCord Museum, http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/en/collection/artifacts/II-66753.1

2. photo by Harold Rosenberg